RATED NC-17 and R for many chapters. Please Leave This Site If You Are Under 18.This story is Adult in nature, with explicit language and includes graphic depiction of adult sexual behavior
and some depiction of violence.

Chapter 33
Sins of the Mother

"I do not wish to try again and I do not wish to discuss it further," Snape told her, refusing to look Welkin in the eyes.

"Don’t be embarrassed Severus. If you can’t talk about it with me, who can you? I’m sure it’s just something temporary. You’re under a lot of stress. Why don’t you just cuddle with me for a while? We can try again tonight."

They had already tried again twice, with the same dismal result. Severus could become erect but immediately lost his erection as soon as he attempted to insert himself into her.

"I do not wish to cuddle!" he insisted. "I wish to be left alone and not harassed about this!"

"Look, I know you’re upset," Welkin said, starting to lose patience with him, "but that’s no reason to snap my head off. I’m not the cause of your problem so just calm down and listen to me. This is temporary sweetheart. If you’re still having the problem in a few days, we can go to the infirmary and you can be checked out, and…"

"I am not going to the infirmary! This is a private matter and no one else’s business!"

"Stop it! If there’s something wrong you will go to that infirmary for a checkup if I have to drag you all the way!"

Sully woke up and began to cry, startled by their loud voices. "Oh great!" Welkin picked him up and started walking back and forth with him, trying to quiet him as she glared at Snape. "That’s okay Sully…that’s okay baby…mama and daddy aren’t mad…they’re just having a…minor disagreement." She refused to characterize it as a fight.

"You are going to leave me aren’t you? I cannot perform as your husband and you will leave me," Snape said, his sudden recurring fear making him sound irrational.

"Oh Severus, of course not! Why would you even think that? I love you. I’d still love you even if you could never get another erection the rest of your life. I’d never leave you over something that trivial."

"It is not trivial and you know that. Do not try to humour me. Sex is very important to you, as it is to me," Snape said bluntly.

"Well sure, okay, I admit it is. It’s important to us both. But it’s not what I love most about you. What about me? What if I couldn’t have sex with you anymore for whatever reason? Would you just toss me aside and find somebody else?"

"No, of course not."

"I believe you. So do me the same courtesy of believing me when I tell you that I do want to make love with you, I’m absolutely determined to make love with you, but if we can’t that won’t change the way I feel about you."

Sully had stopped crying and Welkin held out her hand expectantly to Severus to join them. He walked towards her slowly and took her hand, no longer looking apprehensive.

"We’re a family Severus," she told him, clasping his hand firmly. "This is how it feels and this is how it works. We love each other. When there are problems we deal with them together, and we support each other, no matter what. Nothing can split us apart unless we let it," she said confidently.

***

Hortense Huffington regarded the copy of the journal she’d made from the original penned by Welkin’s grandmother. She hadn’t really had time to read much of it yet. She had been too busy executing the first phase of her plan. Perhaps when she was sure that she’d accomplished her goal, then she could peruse it and decide how to make use of it, if there was any value to it at all.

How easy it had been to gain Welkin’s confidence. She really was far too trusting - surprising for someone in Slytherin House. Of course, apparently she was only in Slytherin because of her husband Severus. Obviously she wasn’t clever enough to have been chosen for it on her own merit.

Hortense leaned back against the headboard of her bed and held up the vial of dark powder she’d used to cast her spell by surreptitiously mixing it into the brown sugar that Welkin used to flavor her morning coffee. How convenient it had been that Welkin had asked to meet her each morning over coffee to hand over her brat to her care and discuss what she wished done for him during the day when she was engaged with other things.

As long as the powder was in Welkin’s system, Severus Snape would be in for quite a surprise whenever he attempted to bed his wife. Hortense had gone to quite a lot of trouble to acquire what was needed to humiliate Snape and drive a permanent wedge between him and his wife. Oh how she wished she could transform herself into something small and unobtrusive enough to observe the drama in that bedroom tonight. Unfortunately, it would have to be enough knowing that her plan for revenge against them both was working, even if she couldn’t see it playing out.

When their relationship was weakened by the first phase of her plan, it would be time to administer the deathblow. It would be time to deal with the child. Welkin and Snape would never recover from losing that half-Muggle brat of theirs. Of that she was certain.

She loathed being Hortense, but this form and the forged documents had been necessary to get close enough to Welkin to execute her plan. The nondescript features and shapeless figure she had assumed made her avoid looking into the mirror. Just three more days and three more doses and the effect of the spell would be permanent. She would deal with the child and then she could reveal herself to Welkin and gloat in victory over her. Welkin had humiliated her in a very public way and now she would destroy her happiness and life with Severus in retaliation.

Hortense extinguished the light in the bedroom she had temporarily rented at the boarding house in Hogsmeade. As she drifted off to sleep, her body began to shimmer as the reverse glamour spell left her and her true form was revealed. Lying in her place, like a malevolent sleeping beauty, was Huldra Helliwell.

***

Two more days and nights went by. Much to Welkin’s concern and Snape’s embarrassment, he continued to experience his distressing problem, unable to take their sexual encounters to completion, although he no longer avoided trying. Indeed, Welkin thought he tried too hard and too often, advising him to put it out of his mind and just let things flow more naturally.

Classes started and Snape, preoccupied with the new term and his depressing sexual problem, forgot about his determination to investigate Sullivan’s new nanny until late afternoon on the third day. Welkin brought it up after his last class of the day as they waited in the Great Hall for the nanny to return Sully to them.

"Would you be very upset if I dismissed Hortense as Sully’s nanny?" Welkin asked.

"Why? Has she done something that displeased you?" Snape inquired. He had uneasy feelings about the woman himself.

"Well, kind of. Not concerning Sully, but this morning she just suddenly went off on me about nothing. I met her here with Sully as usual and everything was okay until I said I didn’t feel like having any coffee this morning. She went crazy on me all of a sudden and practically tried to force it on me. Something just seems off about her. Do you know what I mean?" Welkin didn’t know how else to put it. "And I had a weird dream about her this afternoon when I fell asleep in our quarters while I was studying."

"Was it one of your special dreams or just a dream?" Snape asked.

"I’m not sure really. You and I were standing in the forest with Hortense. It was very dark but there was firelight. She was holding Sully and he was crying. You pointed your wand at her and then I woke up."

"I think it would be very wise if we did dismiss her, whether your dream means anything or not," Snape agreed. "I do not think the woman is reliable."

In agreement about the best course of action to take, they sat and waited for the nanny, who was due to appear with their child within the next quarter hour.

***

"She’s not here! She’s taken him Severus!" Welkin told him, looking around the North Tower room in panic. They had gone to the North Tower when Hortense failed to show up downstairs with Sully well past the appointed time.

"I should never have given him to her this morning when she was acting so strangely. Why did I let her take him? It’ll be all my fault if anything happens to him!" Welkin wailed.

"Stay calm. You must not blame yourself - you had no way of knowing that she would do this. I will get Sullivan back," he promised her. "You saw her in the forest in your dream. I will go to the Forbidden Forest and find her. Do not worry. She will not harm our son," Snape reassured her.

"I’m going with you!" Welkin said.

Snape started to protest, but remembered that Welkin had said they were together in the forest in her dream. Fortunately, they both kept clothing and other personal items in this room, since Albus had granted them permission to use it on occasion as a change of pace from their dungeon quarters. It was Snape’s concession to Welkin’s preference for airy, sunlit rooms, as opposed to his personal preference for the opposite.

Snape produced cloaks for them both from the chifferobe in the corner. "Put this on," he told Welkin. "Night is falling and it will be cold in the forest this time of year."

He opened the window and Welkin ran into his arms, clinging to him as he swirled away out the window, headed toward the forest.

***

"This way," Welkin told him.

"Are you certain?" Snape asked her, wondering how she could possibly know.

"Yes. She took Sully this way. I can feel it. Don’t ask me how I know - I just know," Welkin said with great certainty. Please god, don’t let us be too late, she thought as she clasped Severus’s hand and ran with him in the direction she had indicated.

They hadn’t gone another half a kilometer when they started to hear the high-pitched keening of a baby crying. "That’s Sullivan," Snape said, recognizing the distinctive cadence of his wailing. Without another word they quickened their pace.

A few minutes later they started to see light from a campfire filtering through the trees as they ran. As they drew closer, a cloaked form, who Welkin assumed was Hortense, rose from a crouched position by the fire, her back to them. As she moved aside, Welkin caught sight of Sully, lying naked on the ground before the fire, screaming in protest against the cold night air. Hortense turned, a jeweled dagger raised in her hand. When she saw them running toward her, she snatched Sullivan up off the ground and held him clutched against her chest, one long-nailed hand around his neck, his feet dangling and kicking as he continued to shriek.

Welkin and Severus both drew their wands at the same time and pointed them at her. Hortense quickly pressed the dagger she held against the baby’s chest, pricking the skin directly over his tiny heart. A single drop of blood dribbled down his pale little chest and he shrieked again.

"I wouldn’t do that if I were you," Hortense told them, a nasty edge to her voice. "Unless you want me to cut out his heart," she threatened. The firelight made the wicked grin on her face look even more demented. "Do you recognize this dagger Welkin?"

"Give me my baby!" Welkin shouted. "Don’t you dare hurt him!"

"I said…do you recognize this dagger? Answer me or I swear I’ll cut him open and gut him right here and now, you stupid bitch!"

"Wait! Don’t!" Welkin peered at the dagger, wondering what it was the mad woman wanted her to say.

"Huldra! Give us our son unharmed and you may still manage to survive this night," Snape told her ominously, having recognized the implement she held. He steeled himself against Sullivan’s crying, concentrating instead on keeping Huldra occupied so that she would not make good on her threat.

Huldra? Welkin looked at the dagger and finally did recognize it - it was the knife that Huldra Helliwell had tried to stab her with when Welkin had fought with her last year. But the evil woman who wielded it now looked nothing like Huldra Helliwell.

Huldra grimaced and pricked the baby a second time, eliciting a fresh howl of protest from Sully.

"Put down your wands!" Huldra ordered. "The both of you – or the next prick will pierce his heart, I swear it!"

Snape looked at Welkin. "Do as she says," he said quietly. He looked into her eyes as he said it and Welkin suddenly felt him in her mind. She flashed a thought back to let him know that she understood.

Welkin slowly bent and laid her wand on the ground. As she started to rise again she faked a stumble and fell forward towards the fire. Huldra leapt back, her eyes diverted to Welkin for just a second.

In a lightning flash Snape quickly leveled his wand at Huldra and shouted the disarming charm. The dagger flew out of her hand and she lost her grip on the baby. In one smooth movement Welkin regained her footing and pushed forward, catching Sully before he could hit the ground.

In the same instant as Welkin was catching their child, Huldra tried to pull her wand and aim it at Snape, but was not quick enough. Snape hit her square in the chest with his second volley, knocking her 30 feet distant, where she lay still on the ground. Unconscious, Huldra’s body began to shimmer and the reverse glamour charm dispelled, leaving her still crumpled on the ground but looking like her old deceptively beautiful self.

Welkin dabbed at the blood on Sully’s chest and held him inside her cloak to shield him from the cold, speaking soothing words to quiet him as Severus came to her side.

Snape pulled them both into his arms and they stood huddled together by the fire.

"What are we going to do with her?" Welkin asked, nodding toward Huldra.

"Not what I would like to do," Snape told her. The hatred in his voice chilled Welkin to the bone. "We will let the authorities deal with her. If there is any measure of justice to be extracted from this, she will soon be spending her days and nights in Azkaban and we will finally be well rid of her."

***

Snape’s prediction proved true. When Huldra’s room in Hogsmeade was searched, some of the powder she had used on Welkin was discovered among her personal effects, but The Daily Prophet reported that she was convicted primarily of the more serious crimes of "kidnapping and attempted murder of Sullivan Snape, minor child of Professor Severus Snape of Hogwarts and his wife Welkin Snape."

Huldra’s personal effects, including a nondescript dark leatherbound book which appeared to be a journal of some sort, were duly confiscated and placed in a secure area at the Ministry of Magic, to be inspected at a later date and then held for her in the event she was ever released from Azkaban.